Brimir - and the truth from 6000 years ago...
... but maybe not the whole truth... Dear friends of “Zero no Tsukaima”!The text you find here is highly speculative. It is based on assumptions and conclusions, but not on the facts that we know - or believe to know - from the "light novels", the manga or the anime. I venture here to try to reinterpret these facts, and perhaps even in this way we can track down the sources and thoughts that the late author may have had. I can already see our bureaucrat's threatening forefinger, who may only allow facts in this wiki - be it! Some may be interested, however, before it is condemned to the purgatory of the fire fighting candidates of delution. The truth of 6000 years ago - that was the title of one of the chapters from the "light novels", and naturally the bearers of these truths were those who had lived in Halkeginia's past, that is Brimir and Sasha, and the one who was allowed to look into that past - Saito. But what he knew and / or suspected was described from his perspective. Could it be that he did not notice or perhaps misinterpreted what became part of his memories as the three "dreams"? That can almost be assumed. He saw three tears from Halkeginia's distant past, but never the whole picture. He too was forced to interpret, and his youth, lack of history and the brevity of these visions could have led him astray. Let's start this discussion with Brimir. As mentioned in the comments to the chapter assigned to him, the name Brimir is a dialect form of "Ymir", the anciend great giant from the older Edda. Now, however, Brimir was consistently portrayed as a human being, not as a demigod or giant, so that it can be assumed that Brimir could be an accepted name. It is now known, however, that the gods of the old days knew how to punish such self-exaltation to bear the name of one of them. And this in turn only allows one conclusion to be drawn: the one we know as “Brimir” knew the religion of the Northmen, but was not part of this belief system. He might have had a different belief, and if we look at the history of Halkeginia, what would be closer than Christianity? Now, however, another name appears in the vicinity of Brimir, the name of the tribe he had adopted: Magi. Magi is a term from ancient Persian. In a broader sense it means: wise man. It also includes those who practiced ritual magic and has thus become the namesake for everyone who uses magic - the magician. The Brimir tribe was called "the Magi" - why? Because they practiced the arts of magic? How could a connoisseur of Nordic history and the Nordic pantheon come into contact with a group of people for whom this term was characteristic? In the past, there was a point of contact where such an encounter could have occurred ... For a long time in the history of the Near East there was a group of northern men who lived in Constantinople, today's Istambul, and who served the Caesars of Eastrome: the Varäger. They were descendants of Northmen, of Vikings who had initially been feuding with Eastrom but soon turned to Eastrom's side and for a long time had been a strong prop of Eastrom. Initially, they were still attached to their traditional belief in Odin and Thor, but the melting power of their environment gradually led them to convert to Christianity. The area of power of Eastern Rome also included areas of the old Persian Empire at times. Had here the encounter taken place that led to Brimir adopting this tribe so to speak and taking over its leadership? Here we are again forced to speculate. But I can't think of any other point of contact between Persian "Magi" and a blonde man who called himself "Brimir". So was Brimir a Varäger? And what could cause such a Nordmann to take a Persian group of people under his wing, so to speak? And so we come to the third term that appears in this context - the enemies of the Magi, who were called Variags. Saito felt reminded of Greeks or Romans when he saw their armor. But he consistently described the armor as metal armor. The Greeks, however, used linen armor until the times of the Roman Empire - layers of linen were laid on top of one another and soaked with a kind of glue, so that a type of laminate was created that could withstand lances and sword blows. Romans used metal armor, but these were designed as rail armor or segment armor. And yet there was a form of metallic armor worn by Greek-born soldiers, and it fits into the period in question: the Cataphracts. These warriors were among the elite-troops of the Eastern Roman Empire.Their discipline and organization were excellent, and the Variags were portrayed as such warriors. But why should Brimir stand up against the Variags / Cataphracts, which were allies of the Varagans? Here it is finally speculative. One of the great achievements of the Emperor Constantine was the Milan-Agreement, which was supposed to guarantee religious freedom for the empire. However, this agreement, often erroneously referred to as the "edict of tolerance", was later revoked, starting with Emperor Theodosius, and as a result persecutions of non-Christian religions and civil wars ensued. The Magi as Persians were probably attached to a belief system based on Zoroastrianism and should therefore be seen as the victim of such persecution. It may be that Brimir's soul revolted from such persecution and that is why he took care of the Magi. In addition, he was close to Arianism as a Varager, while the Eastern Roman emperors preferred a Catholicist orientation of Christianity. Zoroastrianism with its bipolar worldview was similar to Arianism, in which the role of Jesus was different from that in Catholicism. But back to Brimir. Who was he, what could he do? He must have been a kind of mutant. An atomic theory had existed for a long time before him, that of Democritus, but he apparently managed to get into this area and go beyond it in a purely intellectual way. Perhaps he found access to the quantum level and could influence quantum interactions. This is possibly the most energetic process in the universe. Influencing such processes may even be able to break the barriers between worlds and universes. Brimir and his Magi desperately tried to avoid the Variags' persecution. And they found such a possibility in a "world gate" that Brimir opened for them, a gate into a parallel world - Halkeginia! However, what Brimir could not prevent was the fact that after the passage of the Magi through the world gate remained open long enough for the pursuing Variags to follow him to Halkeginia. We don't know how much time it took for the Variags to reorganize - enough time, at any rate, to allow Brimir and Sasha to meet, to make them fall in love, and to be able to produce some children. There is no doubt that Sasha was her mother. And he made Sasha his familiar in the course of a magical experiment - the first Gandalfr ever. Brimir must have been quite surprised that the passage of the "World Gate" had not succeeded in shaking off the Variags, the persistent pursuers. This led to the battle of Nidabello (or Nidavellir), which was decided in favor of the Magi by the magic of Brimir - the battle that Saito witnessed and participated in alongside Sasha. The Variags were put to flight, and Brimir evaded any persecution by setting up another world gate, but this time the Magi stayed on Halkeginia. And with that we come to another chapter in the Vita of Brimir - more precisely, to the end. We know that Brimir's descendants were threatened by a great danger - a tremendous charge of the "Windstones" that would have made much of Halkeginias uninhabitable. It is even possible that the event was the one that created Albion. Brimir investigated and realized that this charge was caused by a "masterstone" resting in a mountain below the "Great will". Unfortunately, the elves had just built their capital at the foot of this mountain. The destruction of the "Masterstone" would also have resulted in the destruction of this capital. Brimir sent Sasha to the elves to ask them to evacuate the city. The course of that conversation was the subject of the second "rune dream" that Saito had. Sasha was hopeful that this evacuation could be brought about. Brimir was far more pessimistic about this. And he shouldn't have been wrong! The elves refused to leave their capital. And now Brimir was faced with a terrible choice: either to wipe out half of the elves with their city, or to allow the likely extermination of the people for whom he had blamed himself. We know how Brimir decided: against the elves and for the people. In a split second, the city and a part of the "Masterstone" was destroyed by his void spell. For now, the danger of charging the "Spirit Stones" was averted. But this terrible act, which Brimir had forced himself to, had destroyed his courage to live. When Sasha came to him in frenzied despair over this mass murder, he allowed her to pierce him with Derflinger. His last words were likely: “I have committed an unforgivable sin, a crime of such monstrous proportions that I can no longer live with it. Death is welcome as a punishment for this sin. " This was Brimir's death as a human being. But was it the end of him? I think it is possible that this was not the case ... There is evidence that his nature remained effective in the world beyond his death. One of them would be the three “rune dreams” that Saito let the past of “sixthousand years ago” experience. Saito thought it possible that these “dream experiences” in the Gandalfr runes had been stored in his hand, so to speak, and were waiting for the right triggers to be released. But I think this presumption is wrong. Saito's conversations with Brimir and Sasha were real interactions. And this means that one of the interlocutors had to be at least mentally present. So Saito's mind had either actually been carried into the past, or Brimir's mind was active in the present and brought about these conversations. But how could that be possible if, for example, Saito was only worn mentally in Brimir's time? If Saito was not physically present in the past, how could Brimir have stored these memories in runes that were present in the distant future with Saito's body? It looks different if Brimir was able to be present in Saito's real time in order to be able to hold these conversations and save memories. But for that he should have been present in the future. So he should have survived his death. How? As a disembodied spirit, as a ghost? I don't believe in that. And that's where Derflinger comes in, the sword that pierced him and ended his halkeginian life. We know that Derflinger could transfer his "I", his essence, into a new blade. Why shouldn't Brimir, the greatest magician of Halkeginia, have engraved his self next to Derflinger's "I" into this blade that was in his body, as a kind of "subroutine" of Derflinger's "soul"? Another indication could be the incredible capabilities of Derflinger. This sword was not only able to retrieve spells once entered, but Derflinger was able to cast magic itself. Who was the guiding spirit that would have made such things possible? Wasn't the last spell that led to Derflinger's self-destruction and revived Louise more than just a stored program? Not to forget that Derflinger's self-sacrifice made it possible for Louise to finally destroy the “Masterstone” after her resuscitation - the task that even Brimir had ultimately failed? One final indication: When Saito left with Louise Halkeginia through the "World Gate", a "voice" in Saito's head said that the World Gate had enough capacity to transfer both back to Japan at the same time. Saito carried a shard of Derflinger's blade as a souvenir - but was it a remnant of Derflinger's personality, or was it some other spirit that made it possible? We will never know. Noburu Yamaguchi has left us without giving us even the last minute deliberations and the aim of the series. This leaves us with only speculations as to whether those who completed his work knew more than he told us ...